Pablos Time carried Trey Yates to a record-breaking 236-point run and a unanimous 2025 AQHA World Show Senior Heeling title, earning $29,412.03 in Oklahoma City Nov. 10.
Yates and helper Chad Masters topped every judge’s card in a deep short round to take the title, setting a new event record and notching Yates’ second AQHA world championship—a career milestone at the close of a high-stakes season.
“He’s a freak,” Yates said of Pablos Time, a gelding by One Time Pepto out of Perry Shorts. “There’s really no horse that can do what he can do. I’ve never ridden one that moves his feet that fast and can stop and take the pressure.”
The win marked a full-circle moment for Yates and the 10-year-old gelding. He originally bought Pablos Time—nicknamed Pablo—from Kelby Phillips when the horse was coming 6, and Yates showed him at one futurity. But despite recognizing the horse’s talent, Yates didn’t click with him at the time.
“I kind of gave up heeling on him,” he said. “He didn’t fit me for some reason. But Porter [his friend] loved him, and his dad obviously loved the looks of him. That’s kind of how our friendship started—through that horse.”
Porter went on to win big on Pablo, roping on him at the BFI and clinching a NHSFR championship. Meanwhile, the horse stayed in the family circle—used occasionally by Yates when other horses went down. Earlier this year, with Pablo back in his string at the Sun Circuit in Scottsdale, Yates asked if he could show him.
“I thought I had a chance to win the heading and the heeling,” he said. “And we did exactly what we set out to do.”
Yates’ win in Oklahoma City came just weeks after securing his fourth Wrangler National Finals Rodeo qualification, where he’ll heel for Luke Brown in Las Vegas. With $123,303 in regular-season earnings and over a million in career PRCA earnings, Yates now enters the NFR with momentum and confidence—and Pablo as a possible backup horse behind his main mount, Romancing The Chics.
“I wouldn’t be surprised if he’s right there with Dude at the NFR,” Yates said. “He’s proven himself.”
In a brutally tough short round, Yates relied on Pablo’s speed, power and cool presence in the box to lay down one of the sharpest AQHA World Show runs ever recorded.
“That was my second world championship—first one in four years,” he said. “I knew it would take care of itself.”
Yates and Masters went into the finals with a plan to show off Pablo’s strengths: aggressive roping with plenty of run.
“Chad hit the eye over when he rode in and told me to hold up,” Yates said. “But I just sent it anyway. I had faith he would stand there flat-footed, be quiet. And when I left there, I left right to the end of it.”
Yates put tons of speed on his rope going down the arena and delivered on the first hop.
“You have to stay ahead of him,” Yates added. “Or he’s going to tell on you.”
The run was calculated, aggressive, and perfectly timed—a statement from a veteran horseman reaching a new high at just the right moment.
“There’s nothing compares, and maybe never will be,” Yates said. “That was my chance.”
